Ritual of Ever-Present Coverage May Not Pass Muster With Trump

Since Election Day, President-elect Donald Trump has refused to let reporters accompany him to the White House, accused the media of inciting protests and tweeted accusations that The New York Times fabricated stories about his transition.

As a candidate, he vilified journalists by name and blacklisted news outlets that displeased him. So when President-elect Trump ducked out to dinner one night without informing the journalists assigned to cover him, it struck White House reporters as a small but significant omen that cordial relations between the president and his press corps, a hallmark of the West Wing, were under threat. Is it a big deal if a president goes to dinner and the press doesn’t know? In a word, yes, according to former administration officials, journalists and a group of press advocacy organizations that issued an open letter to President-elect Trump arguing that Americans “deserve to know what the president is doing.”